Will Reds regret not having speedster on roster during postseason?

Sep. 22, 2012

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The legend of Billy Hamilton sprints on, even as he has stopped running for the season. His cleats are in the Hall of Fame! He scores from first on singles to left field! Opposing teams play the infield in when he’s up, even if there isn’t a runner on third base!

He’s the speed of light, times the blink of an eye! Billy Hamilton can run from first base to second twice, in the time it takes you to read this sentence!

When I asked Walt Jocketty, he chuckled. Laughed even, as in, “What a dumb question.’’ The Reds pondered, briefly, promoting Hamilton from Class AA Pensacola to the big club in September. They never considered adding him to their postseason roster.

Never considered it?

“Nope,’’ Jocketty says. “Not even feasible.’’

Why not?

There’s a big story in Sports Illustrated this week. Steroid use is down, the bicep market is tanking. Nobody’s scoring the way they did a decade ago. Or, actually two decades ago. Runs are at their lowest ebb since 1992. Speed matters again. Chicks dig the stolen base.

So do aggressive-thinking ballclubs. The success rate this year, 74.2 percent, is the second-highest it has been since 1920. Speed puts defenses on notice. It sends pitchers into flaming, smoking spasmodics.

As a team, the Reds are not obviously fast. They’re 13th in the league in stolen bases. But they’re aggressive. Few teams are better at getting baserunners from first to third on a single with less than two outs. They teach it, throughout the organization.

They could still use Billy Hamilton. He’s the seventh bullet in a six-chamber gun.

Ninth inning, down a run, or tied. A leadoff walk. Hamilton pinch runs. He steals second, he steals third. He scores on a flyball. This isn’t hard to imagine. It’s like imagining tides shifting sand.

October baseball isn’t July baseball. Every game means another good to great starting pitcher. Every managerial throat tightens. One run means more. It could mean everything. Wouldn’t you like having Billy Hamilton on the bases?

Jocketty says the Reds would rather have another pinch hitter.

Well, OK. Who?

Jocketty says Hamilton isn’t ready to run in the majors.

OK. Is the distance greater between the bases in Cincinnati than in Pensacola?

He says the 22-year-old Hamilton admitted it was harder to steal bases at Double-A (where he was caught 16 times in 67 tries) than in A-ball, where he went 104-for-125. He says all that sliding did a number on Hamilton’s lean 6-foot-1, 160-pound frame.

Jocketty thinks Hamilton and the Reds will be better served by giving him some time off, then sending him to the Instructional League, to learn to play the outfield. “We just didn’t think he was ready,’’ Jocketty says.

No telling what Hamilton himself thinks. The Reds wouldn’t let him talk to me.

It’s not as if the Reds are a hitting machine. Even though they play in the big softball park on the river, they’re only 9th in the league in runs, and still overly homerun-reliant. If the season ended today, they’d open the LCS in San Francisco, the hardest park in the majors to hit a home run.

We remain preoccupied with the postseason pitching rotation. It’s the lineup that should give more pause. Heading into the weekend, the Reds had scored 56 runs in 18 September games. In eight of those games, they’d scored two runs or fewer

A little extra scoot on the bases is always a good thing in October. Ask Dave Roberts. Boston Red Sox fans still congratulate him for the stolen base he had in 2004, in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series. The Bostons were down three games to the Yankees, and trailed 4-3 in the bottom of the 9th of Game 4. Roberts pinch-ran, stole second base off Mariano Rivera and scored the tying run on a single.

Boston won in 12 innings, the first of eight straight wins that earned the Red Sox their first world title since 1918.

The Reds could carry 11 pitchers in the postseason, rather than the 12 they have now. They’ll only need four starters, not the conventional five. That would open a spot for the man who only needs a set of wings to be an airplane.

If the club were interested in that sort of flying.

It’s not.

Jocketty could be right. He’s paid to be right about stuff such as this.

Or, sometime in the next month, there could come a climactic moment when only lightspeed will do. Billy Hamilton will be home then, watching on TV. Speed thrills. But not from the Barcalounger.